Walter Phillips Gallery

From Toronto I moved to Banff, AB to take the position of Curatorial Work-Study at the Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre. From a large city with countless galleries, events, performances and talks I arrived in a town where I found myself working for the only institution of cultural significance. Imagine working for an institution that is actively contributing critical material to the broader contemporary art dialogue, filled with people in studios furiously making art, large facilities at the ready that include print making, fibre, wood and metal, paper making and ceramics; but, it’s the only arts institution with national and international scope in a tiny town full of local residents who either do not care to understand what goes on at the Centre or consider it an unsightly hazard ruining a mountain landscape (the Centre is located half-way up one of the mountains surrounding the town) – of course there are also residents and outside visitors who attend the concerts and dance performances. Regardless, the Centre is isolated, no argument; this condition is internally acknowledged by the Visual Arts departmental who understands the website as the institution’s highest priority because it knows that hardly anyone is going to make the trek deep into a protected national park nestled in the mountains to go see an art exhibition or conduct studio visits. This is the anomaly of the Banff Centre – full open access combined with full isolation.

A view from the Centre

I wanted to share a couple of experiences I have had while at The Banff Centre for anyone who may not know what the heck this place is, or who are already interested and looking to apply to a visual arts program:

Artist Residencies: Two began at the same time as I started work at the Walter Phillips Gallery, with about 20 participating artists working diligently for seven weeks – both a Masters Class: The Object of Art and the Art as Object run by Ken Lum and a Thematic Residency: Towards Language run by Greg Staats. It was wonderful to see how their studios progressed from empty white rooms to dirty dishevelled spaces….although some stayed vacant and minimal, which is equally relevant. I really got a sense of how different people work and the sort of production that can be achieved here. It’s different than working at a fine arts degree in a university because people here are doing only what they want to be doing and are rather self-sufficient (what we can call ‘professionalized’). Some are younger artists who are in between a BFA and MFA while others like Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Adrian Stimson, and Alex Janvier are well established and respected artists.

Symposium: Painter House Conversations: I had the opportunity to sit in on a series of sessions that addressed issues surrounding the representation of aboriginal art (both historical and contemporary) in concern to the curatorial, educational and artistic work of participants from the UK, United States and Canada that included: Ryan Rice (Curator of Exhibitions and Programs, Institute of American Indian Arts), Jolene Rickard (Associate Professor, Art History and Visual Arts, Cornell University), Candice Hopkins (Aboriginal Curator-in-Residence, National Gallery of Canada), Jesse McKee (independent curator and recent graduate, Royal College of Art), Jean Fisher (tutor, Critical and Curatorial Studies, Royal College of Art) , Mark Nash (Professor and Head of the Department of Curating Contemporary Art, RCA), Paul Chaat Smith (Curator, National Museum of the American Indian), Adrian Stimson (artist and independent curator), and Kitty Scott (Director: Visual Arts, Banff International Curatorial Institute and the Walter Phillips Gallery). I was responsible for audio recording, additional note-taking and coffee-making during the week-long event, but however glamorous my official duties were, the opportunity to meet and chat with these professional curators was a privilege. In particular I got to meet with Jean Fisher who worked as an exhibition reviewer for Artforum in the 1980s to cover artists and exhibitions that were peripheral at the time because they included aboriginal artists, women and other social minorities, worked as an independent curator with these same peripheral artists out of political motivations and is founding editor of Third Text; she shared some of her experiences with me and offered some perspective on the significant changes in curatorial practice from the 1980s to today.

Curatorial Speakers’ Series – Nicolaus Schafhausen and Chris Eamon: This programme is organized by the Walter Phillips Gallery, so one of my occasional responsibilities is to provide introductions for these speakers and help with minor technical requirements during the talks. Since everyone simply ends up drinking and sharing suppers within normal circumstances during visits within the Banff Centre, interactions are made to be much more relaxed. I was initially very nervous when I was included to attend a supper at a gourmet restaurant as part of the Painter House Conversations’ events and was sat next to Schafhaussen, the Director of the Witte de With in Rotterdam (Netherlands), who had just arrived to give a talk as part of the Speakers’ Series. These are the exact sorts of circumstances that occur frequently while at the Centre. When you are placed within the same room/studio/supper table with artists, curators and writers, it is up to you to seize the experiences as opportunities to make connections, strike up conversations and learn something from these experts. The environment of the Banff Centre allows for these situations to happen for you and all you have to do is learn to take advantage.

International residents and workers: Before I arrived at the Banff Centre I didn’t have a true understanding of the sort of placement of the institution within the international art scene, basically expecting it to be filled exclusively with Canadians. The promotion of the institution as an international cultural hub is true as there are people who have travelled here for shorter residencies (4-7weeks) and longer 3-6 month contracts, like me, from around the world – England, Germany, Switzerland, United States, Sweden, Russia, Italy, Norway, Iceland – and those are just ones that I remember off-hand. I’ve certainly learned about different cultures more than I ever did living in Toronto or Vancouver, if only because here I can talk to people directly and become friends with them; they are not located within isolated communities keeping to themselves like in a larger city, but instead they are all working, drinking and suffering from isolation anxiety together.

Studio parties and pillow talk: always bonuses – and evidently where much of the interesting gossip and fun is exchanged.

The Banff Centre is a microcosm of the art scene in every Canadian city I’ve experienced: peripheral, confusing to the general public, internally focused and masturbatory with its sights set on international rather than local promotion. If embraced, the microcosm effect makes it easier to shake off feelings of isolation so one can learn to take advantage of the innumerable exceptional events that I have had the opportunity to experience here. I agree with what previous Banff Centre residents told me before I arrived, that “everyone must spend time here.” Whether it’s for the social connections, for the development of a continually shifting roster of artists to build curatorial ideas from, for meetings with international art and curatorial stars, for a network of artists interested in similar practices and philosophies, for the studios with facilitators that can assist in making ideas into realities, or for, of course, the epic nature and mountainscapes that surround you.

If anyone out there in XBLOG-reading-land is considering a residency or a work-study position at the Banff Centre, wondering about what sort of facilities are available (or not) for what you’d be interested in pursuing while you’re here, or are already on your way and want some information on the town of Banff and it’s bizarre quirks, I welcome any and all questions here on XBLOG!

Downtown Banff am

For more information go to  www.march18.org

Photographs by Kevin Robbins

In spite of having lived in Toronto for only three years (so far), I have developed a strong sense of home. The reasons for that sort of attachment I cannot explain, at least off the top of my head. Though they are certainly highly relevant. I came to live in Toronto after having exhausted my desire to live in a small city such as London, Ontario as well as relatively massive cities such as New York, where in both cases, for one reason or another, I never developed a genuine sense of attachment to anything cultural. I never felt that I belonged.

In a rather complex, particularly sudden series of events, I have come to see myself as part of a community in which I wasn’t born, Toronto. And in spite of the relatively few years I have spent in this town I am a part of it, a citizen who is involved in and contributing to, its cultural territory. In considering this, I have actually started to examine myself and seen in my actions basic traits of what it is that makes me ‘a local’.

I make art inspired by and for the local public, and I go to school here. I do my taxes here. I bike or walk everywhere, among other reasons, so I don’t pollute the ‘local’ air. I support local businesses and I drink local beer; etc. This is beside the fact that I do carry in me a sentimental connection (reword) to the life of this city, the crappy streetcars, the Don Valley trails, the cooling breeze from the lake, the elderly Chinese practicing tai chi in Grange Park. All these unique things, even the criticism we get from other Canadians for being too American, I love it all. But this perspective is by no means far from common. Like me, millions of others have come to this city to feel the type of attachment to which I have previously referred to, and which I think is a two-way avenue. Toronto offers you advantages and disadvantages but one must be willing to adapt.

To reafirm,that my settlement story is not the first of its kind, I live a city whose history is largely made up of stories similar to my own. Last week I came across a recently released book titled City of Words: Toronto through Her Writer’s Eyes. Edited by Sarah Elton, City of Words contains a compilation of stories, essays and poems told through the words of over 50 writers from varying cultural and generational backgrounds. The book also offers a variety of  photographs covering  different aspects of Toronto.

Both the written and visual elements attempt to answer the question of what it means to be involved with the city; culturally, geographically, architectonically, historically, economically and even sentimentally, both from the perspective of its citizens (born and raised here), and from new arrivers. The perspectives offered by the latter demographics collide at one point or another, forming a relationship, which in my opinion gives Toronto its unique identity, which signifies the embracement and celebrated allocation of cultural diversity.

And certainly Toronto’s position in regards to diversity is only one of the aspects that highlights this city’s uniqueness, and it is definitely not the only characteristic which so many people find lovable about this city. From my own perspective, when trying to pin down what makes an awesome cultural mosaic, one has to consider and examine not just a place’s cultural variety in terms of diaspora, and what different ethnic groups occupy a city, but how the distinct demographic groups that make up the whole city interconnect with cities profile, its history, geography, laws, economy, moral codes, etc. All of which determine, to a very large extent, social and individual relations, in other words whether they feel at home in their city, love it, hate it, feel indifferent and what have you.

The complex group of relations found in Toronto also plays a very similar role in the majority of modern cities particularly in North America. However, by comparison not all cities offer the – for the most part – favorable social atmosphere to such a relatively large number of people as does the city of Toronto. In City of Words I got a chance (important) to experience an embodiment and not just an illustration of what it means be a part of Toronto’s social atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the book has inspired me to further address my own social awareness.

London artist Ron Benner will present on his work on a panel which will discuss issues that relate to GMOs and sustainable practices in food production with Arlene Stein, Sarah Wakefield, and a student representative from The Hot Yam! student organization.

Event : organized by student members of the Hart House Farm Committee,  Hart House Social Justice Committee and Hart House Art Committee.

Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Time : 3 – 5 PM

Place : Debates Room in Hart House, University of Toronto

“Join Amanda Procter from Pueblito Canada and Ananya Ohri from York University, for a discussion about two different approaches to using art as a tool for community development.”

Follow the link above for details

and

I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY YOUR READING WEEK

Late Night in MY Bedroom

A few weeks ago I ran into Joshua Barndt at XPACE. At the time I was editing a blog for XBLOG, when Joshua started up a conversation with my co-workder Elise Windsor, who was sitting right by me. He handed her a business card and made her promise to attend an event he was hosting that same night. Overhearing their conversation I was suddenly seduced by the sound of the word event. Joshua noticed my curiosity. So he gave me a business card and told me I should be there too. By this point, I was attending an event!

Business card

Along with the business card, he provided Elise and I with some extra information about the show. He mentioned the names of the featured artists: Nirvana the Band the Show, Team Macho and, Everything All the Time. However, because these are all local groups, and at various stages in their careers, I was only familiar with Team Macho. But, what actually rang a bell about this whole thing was the phrase: “It’s gonna be funny” Yes, fun is something I can always relate to. And then Joshua wrapped up our casual meeting with “Show and Tell Gallery tonight at 10”. It was a Wednesday, a day of the week when for me nothing much happens. And again, by this point not only I was into the idea of going to this event, but also I was convinced that it was going to be a good time.

I left XPACE that day with a business card and an event invite. But I did not want to get there and have no idea of what was going on; so I turned to the content of the card for further clues. Like most business cards, this business card was stamped with a URL: “LATENIGHTINTHEBEDROOM.COM”. Hit enter. In that site, visitors can find a list of videos, which are broken down by ‘episode’. “Episode 6”, was, at that time, the latest episode, featuring Jonas Bonetta singing/playing “Evening Hymns”. This part of “Episode 6” takes place on a rooftop with a beautiful view of Toronto’s skyline. By this point I was completely immersed by appealing melodies and visuals both of which were embedded in that episode.

Screenshot of "Episode 6", Jonas Bonetta Performing "Evening Hymns" on a Toronto Rooftop. 2009.

In an attempt to wrap my head around this ‘show’ I looked at the length of this “episode”: 27:01 and wondered if the whole thing was a video of Jonas’ performance. But to my surprise the video featured a variety of artists and musicians. For the most part, LATE NIGHT IN THE BEDROOM fuctions as a talk show. Each segment features a different artist (or group of artists) in dialogue about their work and ideas with host Carey Wass. Sometimes the interviews are also made outside of the recording studio, in various locations across downtown Toronto. These are all the things I found out after watching “Episode 6”. By this point, besides being excited about the event I was to attend that night, I was excited to see local artists presented in a brilliantly produced and almost underground local show.

At the end of the night, the event at Show and Tell Gallery proved to be a blast. A bubbly crowd packed the place. And an entertaining line-up of artists, performers and musicians ensured that “Episode 7” will be another successful show.
By this point the whole puzzle had come together. I really can’t wait for the next gig.

To see the Late Night in the Bedroom episodes go to:

http://www.latenightinthebedroom.com/

0182 = jpeg - Lisa Moses

Gallery 1313 has been supporting emerging artists for twelve years. Although twelve years might not seem like a long time, it is enough time to have some sort of history. As part of Gallery 1313’s programme, curator Phil Anderson has put together a sex show that has been running for six years. This show went from being titled “High Libido” to “The Sex Show”. Coincidentally, February (2010) is also the month when the second Cadmium edition celebrates a similar subject. So here is a short interview with Phil Anderson from Gallery 1313 in which he offers insights into some relevant issues that are embodied in the “The Sex Show”.

EDISON OSORIO: Phil, the premise of the show suggests that you guys are having  fun with the theme of ‘sex’, which makes it sound naughty. How explicit does the show get?

PHIL ANDERSON: Pretty explicit, we have a warning on the door because we do have families that come to the gallery, and we don’t want them to bring the kids in and subject them to material that’s very adult-oriented, and it’s pretty broad-based.

EO: What are some of the most common media artist have submitted to address this subject?

PA: This year we have some sculptural pieces by Christian Waldo. He’s made these sculptural human figure buildings with little people walking around them, fairly explicit. With the little people walking around them, they seem like a McDonald’s. So there’s a bit of humour involved in that.

"The Eatery" - Christian Aldo

There’s also a female artist who employs dark eroticism. She did an image of a woman in a hot tub with a squid, a bizarre kind of approach. There’s also an OCAD artist who takes pornographic magazines and cuts out the images, and then she applies paint to them so they become very layered and textured.

Bathtime - Alison Thomson

Surprisingly, we haven’t gotten a lot of works in the way of video. I used to curate screenings, and sex-related videos are usually explorations of the human body, as opposed to the work of artists like Bruce Labruce, which is more explicit in content. Many people think of his work as being pornographic. I think the different kinds of attitudes towards artworks are interesting too. Some guy came into the gallery and was talking about ‘the dirty show’ as in “The Sex Show”, like sex is dirty. Sometimes those attitudes have a lot to do with gender.

EO: How does the meaning of a sex-related artworks change when it’s brought into a gallery?

PA: It’s particularly interesting to see a group show around the theme of sex because you see so many different approaches to it. It’s all very diverse. It’s almost like food. People have different tastes and attitudes towards food, and it’s almost the same with sex. They have different appetites and things that they like. So when you bring that all together in a space with so many different artists who have different approaches you get a variety of responses.

And there were some submissions that didn’t really fit the bill. Perhaps it has to do with where I’m coming from. A naked body doesn’t necessarily have a sexual connotation to it, for me. Perhaps somebody else finds that erotic, to him or her.

One time I had a submission by an artist, in which she had a group of faces of some guys. I tried to find where the sexual significance in that was. But there wasn’t really a statement that went with it to explain how she found them erotic or sexual.

There’s another artist, Paul P. who’s done work with faces. There’s a sort of obvious sensuality in their faces, so it’s interesting to see people’s take on what they find sexual or erotic.

EO: How does the audience interact with the works?

PA: It varies on the people. Some approach the work with a little bit of caution. Others find themselves intrigued. But for the most part, how they react to the show becomes more important than the work itself.

EO: Do they ever feel offended?

PA: I never get complaints. One time I had a guy complain that it wasn’t offensive enough. But I don’t know what he was expecting. When you put out that sign, you’re letting the audience know what they’re up against. These days, we see so many images in the media that have sexual connotations to them, and the boundaries are being pushed further and further, and so people come in expecting to see who knows what.

Years ago, Mercer Union was closed because some drawings by Eli Langer were deemed by the public as child pornography. “In 1993… 35 drawings and five paintings were removed from the gallery by the Morality Bureau of Toronto Police”. It was unfortunate too, because it’s hard to wash off this reputation that the artist gained.

“The Sex Show” runs from the 3^rd to the 14^th of February at 1313 Queen Street West.

JMB Gallery is offering an attractive educational program for free (February 15 – 20).

For more info go to:

http://extra-curricular.info/?page_id=96

Examining the role of formal education during some free time over the holidays, I came to a conclusion, be it a flexible conclusion, that the success of formal education is largely dependant on its external enhancements. In that light, I have come to the point of my life where there are a lot of educators— institutional and non-institutional ones—trying to cultivate a sense of socio-political awareness amongst students and faculty alike.

I consider myself lucky because educators who take on the role of ‘activist’ are a big part of my studies at OCAD. These professors constantly encourage students to confront the flaws in the socio-political global system without violating any intuitional rules. This type of education feels very real. In a healthy manner, it expands anyone’s views of the world.

Having lived in the United States for a few years, I have come to notice a clear distinction of what matters to students, in terms of education. Down south, public educational institutions don’t offer much of a discussion on social conflict. In Canada, on the other hand, education, culture, politics, human rights and social affairs in general, matter more to a larger number of the population – specifically a younger generation. This interest is reflected in the type of educators which I have come across during my studies at OCAD. There is a humanistic essence to the citizens of this country, which I personally feel lucky to be a part of and surrounded by. However, whether or not Canadians are actually proactive socially and politically is whole other blog. On a personal level –and I’m not proud to admit this- I am not very proactive.

Interestingly enough, Americans, at least the ones that are proactive ‘culture jammers’, seem keen(er) on constantly challenging the system. They stir up polemic issues for others. They make us aware of how politics affect our lives. In that same vein, most of us are fairly familiar with the intense work of Michael Moore. His documentaries and activist actions can be said to be part of a mainstream community. His work gets shown in theaters and culturally-aware TV channels locally and abroad. And although the lack of support by his compatriots is clearly visible, his work serves as inspiration and pedagogical material to viewers around the world.

The good news is that large-scale activism doesn’t stop with mainstream documentaries. The non-profit educational project by cats, The Pinky Show, also confronts the system by utilizing the Internet as a channel to expand ideas that challenge the narratives and agendas built into our current pedagogical structures. The Pinky Show’s main purpose is to tell fact-based historic events excluded from most textbooks used in predominant educational systems. In other words, their show is about uncovering the information, which before could only be found between the lines. They do it through a didactic ’talk show’ streamed on YouTube. Their episode “The IrakIraq War: Legal or Illegal?” holds over 2.2 million views. Not bad for this unauthorized educational project.

Yes, from an undisclosed place somewhere south of the border comes yet another eye-opener, truth-telling, educational project with an embedded message that cries: ‘Something can be done. We can make a change. We know the world can be a better place. Here is something to think about. Here are some solutions’.

Working on a D.I.Y. motto and “gently poking your brain with a stick”, the staff of The Pinky Show have come to Toronto spreading the show’s intellectual curiosity, openness and empathy. As part of that visit, the Toronto-based magazine FUSE features, in its latest issue, an interview with Pinky and Bunny from the Pinky Show. The content of the article, which deals with in-depth explanations of the educational programme of the project and beyond, could easily have been supported and elaborated upon during the panel discussion that The Pinky Show offered this past Saturday at the Toronto Free Gallery. Said gallery, located at 1277 Bloor Street West, houses an exhibition of illustrated banners that indeed ‘gently poke your brain’ through means of humorous images of a cat, the average Joe cat, and some key words and phrases. It is great to put a face to a project and a cartoon cat.

Another cool activist project running along those lines of humour is The Yes Men. This successful project has been around for a while, and I recently got to see their self-titled documentary. Like the people from The Pinky Show, some of my educators, Moore and many other precursors of change for a better world, I’d like to spread the word and encourage everyone to support and be involved because it is your world too.

"A Piece of the Pie" Edward Lin and Kira Varvanina

The weekend of the 21^st to the 24^th of January marked the launch of the Toronto International Design Festival. During the festival contemporary local and international design gets a spotlight in various venues around Toronto in the form of exhibitions, lectures and symposiums; an exciting cultural-platter for the community.

As part of the TIDF, The Gladstone Hotel on Queen Street West, played host to a widely announced show with a seducing title: “Come Up to My Room”. Here the curators present an array of heterogeneous designs.

The assorted creations, situated on the second floor of the hotel, matched up the audience made up of children, youngsters, adults, designers, artists, architectures, creative makers, and tourists with an assortment of sounds, smells, textures, colours, forms and ideas coming from each of the artworks as well as the space that they occupied. For me the interactive elements were similar to riding the subway during rush hour. There was little room to move around and a high level of awareness of that space, as well as sounds, smells, and even visual signage.

In terms of conceptual approaches, the methods varied. Some rooms were kept as ‘bedrooms’, while the vast majority of the pieces made used the spaces in rather innovative ways adopting materials rarely found in a hotel room. For the most part these materials composed rather immersive environments where, as I have already mentioned, the components of the artworks triggered an alteration of the viewers’ senses.

And although some pieces, such as the “Archival Library of Found Treasures” by Maggie Greyson, Christine Lieu and Phoebe Lo, and site intervention “Bed Memory” by Richard Unterthiner were literarily presented with instructions as to how to interact with their playful content, the rest of the exhibition did not shy away from allowing the audience to experiment and explore. A pair of slanted, large scale, lucid blocks made up of hundred tennis balls stuck together, designed by Jennifer Davis and Jamie Phelan in a work titled “Ballroom” made the faces of the viewers glow with fluorescence. You could see it in the viewers’ faces, as their minds seemed to wonder trying to solve the lack of equilibrium caused by the semi-diagonal design of each of the blocks.

"Ballroom" Jennifer Davis and Jamie Phelan

The mesmerizing tableau created by Julia Hepburn not only turned viewers, like myself, into voyeurs, but also instigated us to make sense of the extraordinary scene which included the sound of grasshoppers embellishing the serene atmosphere of the room.  Under a very dim light, Hepburn sought to portray what seemed to be the dreams of a crow, which was lying in a single bed while covered in white blankets. The glowing objects floating above the bed told something as to what the dreams might be of, but since there was not textual narrative the viewer was left to make his own dream.

"Can You Remember My Dream?" Julia Hepburn. Mixed media.

The Curatorial statement for the show invited different artists designers stemming from different backgrounds to be extremely subjective in their approach to creating works for this show. From my own perspective, the creative makers involved in the exhibition met the expectations of both the organizers and public. “Come Up to My Room” is not only successful at drawing in a large audience, but also in connecting creative makers practitioners with the rest of the community.

When I first heard of the TIDF, and associated projects, I thought it was a bit of a  joke,  but it has turned out to be a real success in generating public awareness and interesting projects. As Margaret Lindsay puts it in her blog “2009 Critics Picks”: “In these days of deficit, the well of creation still overflows. That is certain and worthy of celebration.”